Of the Forest

2ND PLACE WINNER OF THE POETRY BOX CHAPBOOK PRIZE 2021

A story of three siblings, a spouse and a surname, Of the Forest is threaded with poems that hint of danger while also celebrating love...and the sumptuous pleasures of language itself.

The collection reimagines childhood as a journey through a forest where two brothers are, respectively, a wolf and a bear, and their younger sister (their sometimes prey), is someone who society wants to be a "pink balloon,/a party decoration." By living in a "womb of imagination," she transforms herself into a fox whose "topaz eyes glow through fronds/of metaphor and ink."

When the fox leaves the forest of childhood she revels in her new terrain. Now, with "words unsheathed," she wonders if she'll ever "howl in the presence of bears and wolves," while she still dreams of a world where all creatures can astonish themselves "with unimagined flowering."

Along the way, the poems ask where does memory end and imagination begin, what power does a name hold over us, and how can we use language to find understanding, humor and grace.